About The
Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine
An
online clearinghouse for manuscripts treating the humanities and medicine.
Howard Spiro, M.D., Editor
howard.spiro@yale.edu
George
A. Trone, Ph.D., Managing Editor and Webmaster
info@yjhm.org
William G. Rector, M.D., Poetry Editor
poetry@yjhm.org
***
September 10, 2007
Our journal continues to act as a clearinghouse for
manuscripts in the broad area of humanities in medicine. Fired by the poetry and
stories that many of you have brought to us , the electronic format remains
ideal: cheap and rapid, its space is
as limitless as the
Atlantic. George Trone at the helm, with his broad literate background keeps us still on an even
keel. I thank him once again, for his dedication to this labor of love. So many
hard-copy journals, with the very same goals , failed owing to the expense of
editing a paper journal, but George has stayed the course!
I am 83, with god’s/nature’s grace, but I hope there is
someone out there who would be enthusiastic about taking over my task,
whenever—and before. My father
always warned me not to try to rule beyond the grave, though my children suspect
me of exactly such designs. Get in
touch with George Trone or me to learn more.
We continue to welcome words from anyone who hopes to
influence and educate “health-care providers;” we hope that their
contributions will be reasonably
literate and pertinent to the broad field of medicine and medical practice.
Observations from medical students and student nurses are
especially welcome. As yet untrammeled by indoctrination and not yet hardened by
experience, their observations, prove often as
illuminating as the narratives of patients. I would love to see more stories –
‘narrative” now the style is- from patients, because they see us physicians
at our worst and, one hopes, sometimes at our best. Descriptions of the
patient-physician encounter has been an unfailing source of correction and
insight.
Alan Astrow
continues to provide much for readers to think about, in the essays he has
edited on religion in medicine, broadly described nowadays as
“spirituality.” Physicians have been educated to believe that we are
scientists skeptical about anything
that cannot be tested or measured. But all of us are, in the old phrase,
“body, mind, and spirit,” a trinity still too often ignored by doctors to our patient’s
sorrow. Psychotropic drugs can cure depression, but they do not banish sorrow.
There is much more to say on this topic; continuing dialogues between the clergy
and physicians has always been a
source of courage, as each generation wrestles with eternal questions.
Copyright continues a murky question, most advisers
holding that copyright flows from the “pen.” We claim no copyright on
anything published in this journal. You can re-publish it anywhere you want, but
we would appreciate a link to this endeavor.
So continue to send along your contributions by e-mail to
George Trone at info@yjhm.org with a copy to me at howard.spiro@yale.edu.
Poetry submissions should be directed to Bill Rector at poetry@yjhm.org. And send us advice about any new directions we should take. We do plan to
publish a few book reviews and maybe even, from time to time, notices of
classics that need rereading.
Bless you all.
Howard Spiro |